Pastoral by William Carlos Williams

When I was younger
it was plain to me
I must make something of myself.
Older now
I walk back streets
admiring the houses
of the very poor:
roof out of line with sides
the yards cluttered
with old chicken wire, ashes,
furniture gone wrong;
the fences and outhouses
built of barrel staves
and parts of boxes, all,
if I am fortunate,
smeared a bluish green
that properly weathered
pleases me best of all colors.
No one
will believe this
of vast import to the nation.


This poem deals with the authors life, and what he loves about his surrounding world. Things that people don’t care about, are very important to him. The life in the country-like neighborhood is what he really likes. He uses high quality words, which the reader appreciates because they deliver a real deep sense of what he is trying to say and how. Every simple, as well as detailed word, really helped to understand the context and message William Carlos Williams is trying to bring across. His life is different to those, of the vast majority of the population. I think that this really grabs the readers mind and reminds him/her to think about what really is important to them. Is it the prestige of driving a big car, wearing a big watch, or wearing a brand shirt? Or is it the environment which really makes us comfortable and we love to be in? Everyone should ask himself these questions at least once in a while. It really makes us realize what is important, and what isn't. No matter what it is, that is important to an individual, he should always think about it when complaining about anything; we have more privileges than we realize in the first second.

Funeral Blues

This poem is dealing with death once again. This time though, it deals with a couple and one of them has died. It is said that everyone else should show respect and sympathy towards this. It is very straight forward, and easy to understand. There are no phrases or words which could confuse a 10th grade student reader, and none of them are more important than the others. The lines in each stanza emphasize a topic by giving examples of what should happen because of the death. I think that it is really sad how life can end, and how thankful we should be for every day. We shouldn’t just take it as granted, we should appreciate and respect the opportunities we are offered. The days we are healthy and happy, count so much, and we should regard each and every one as being special.

Totally like whatever, you know?

I think that this is very ironic. He says that he doesn’t like all of these things, but actually speaks like it. I was wondering why someone would actually to this. There were no words or phrases which confused me in any form. The words which got repeated over and over again such as like, and the ?'s really helped to understand the text and the meaning of it. Those words also have very big importance which s shown by them being repeated over and over again. Those are important to show how useless and weird the modern slang is. The second time I read the poem, I realized that it really emphasizes the point it is trying to make. No areas were left, which confused me. This poem evokes the feeling that I really have to watch out how I speak and when I speak what. I think that this is exactly what the poem wants us to do.

Do Not Go Gentile Into That Good Night

I personally like this poem. In the beginning, I thought this poem was very confusing, but the third time I read it, I realized what it really was about and I could draw conclusions from it. It lets the reader interpret a lot if different things into the words presented. In my case, I think that this poem is about a son and father, where the father is dying and the son has to say good bye. He wants to keep him alive, and tries to convince him to survive. This is a very sad situation; the more I think about it, the more felling of frustration for the son get evoked in me. Every sentence in this poem really has a meaning, either to emphasize on something, or to inform the reader on what's happening. This poem is really worthwhile reading because it displays a tragic situation of life, which most of us will most probably have to realize once.

Outline for others, yes or no?

I personally feel that sharing an outline in general, is a good idea, but not in this situation. We are supposed to write a very important essay, with OUR OWN IDEAS, and own skills. We shouldn't be doing this with the thoughts and time someone else has invested into his or her outline. I completely understand that Mr. Doubt wants us to see other outlines and the ideas someone else had, but I would ask for some respect in this situation. For example, I sit next to Ika, who hasn't done any of this work yet, and now I should pass him my outline, although he hasn't even invested one single second into thinking about what his essay could be about. This is unfair. I do not want to share my outline in this situation. No, I am not dying to use my outline in order to write my essay, but I would prefer to have it, and use its assistance, rather than having to do it all out of my head.

Chapter 17

In this chapter we can clearly see how lonely and frustrated Holden is. He complains about “phony” people, but acts like one himself. Indirectly, he describes his life and how sad it actually his. Although he has to wait ages for his friend, he forgives her straight away just because of her looks. He relies on her because otherwise, he would be very lonely. He doesn’t have the possibility to meet anyone else, although it is his home town. As the time passes, she acts stranger and stranger; she is flirting with other guys, however, he still stays with her, and takes her to the ice-skating rink. After long conversations, asking her to leave with him into the wild, and marry him; she rejects, consequently, he insults her, and as a result leaves by himself. He stays lonely.

Motifs - Museum

The museum of natural history is a motif representing what environment Holden would like to live in. It is a simple world that never changes, which isn't confronted with problems such as death, and phoniness. Holden isn't very comfortable with his surrounding environment, he would like people to be more real; they act on a daily bases, he cant stand this, and clearly differentiates from them.
(pg.109) "The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move. You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be there just finishing catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the dears would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and their pretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket. Nobody'd be different. The only thing that would be different would be you. "

This quote clearly shows how much Holden likes the Museum and why. He has already been there when he was a small child, with his school. He likes the way nothing ever changes. It stays identical, no matter how often you go. No one is faking or acting differently than they usually do. No one can act phony, everyone is calm. He would really like to live in a place like this.

Skaz

The story "skaz", written by David Lodge, is referring to the writing style “skaz”. The origin and meaning of the word skaz, comes from the Russian language. Suggesting "jazz" and "scat", as in "scat-singing", to the English ear is what it is described as in the story. This text analyzes “The Cather in the Rye”, it is written in first-person narration, in which the character is “I”, which makes the reader feel part of the story. The type of vocabulary and syntax are also described in this story; colloquial speech is used, which should make something seem as if it is more real. Although no one would really speak like that in real life, the reader always interprets it as real. Ernst Hemingway said: “all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn”. Holden Caulfield is a perfect example of this, with a small difference that he is more educated and sophisticated, and the son of a wealthy New Yorker. Besides that, the characters are very similar, both are youthful escapers from a world of adult hypocrisy, venality, and love to use their own favorite word, phoniness.
After a lot of analyzing of both books, Lodge starts to discuss Holden’s narrative style. His style makes it sound like speech rather than writing. It seems as if it was teenage speech because a lot of repetition and slang is used. Words such as “jerk”, “bored as hell”, “phoney”, “big deal”, “killed me” and “old” are used on a very regular, repetitive bases. He exaggerates a lot, with a device called hyperbole, a very good example of this: “You’d have thought they haven’t seen each other in twenty years”. In addition, the syntax used is very simple, and basic. He also uses short sentences, which make it seem as if his writing isn’t very developed. Not to forget, his speech includes a lot of grammatical errors.
Although it is very easy to analyze the mistakes that Salinger makes in his writing, on purpose, it isn’t easy to understand why the reader is so interested in reading this. It isn’t perfectly developed nor is it a great example of grammatical performance or anything like this. The reader is just addicted to this kind of writing. As jazz musicians would say, it swings, and that’s why we are interested in it.

Chapter 7 and 8 Summary

Chapter 7: In this chapter Holden talks to Ackley for a while, and tries to sleep in Ackley's room. He cant sleep because he constantly has to think about what Stradlater and Jane are doing. He gets so annoyed by not being able to fall asleep, and Ackley's phoniness, that he decides to leave for New York already a few days earlier than planned. He plans to stay there undercover for a few days until his parents got his report card. He leaves through the hallway and says “Sleep tight, ya morons!”, and then leaves Pencey forever.

Chapter 8: Holden walks to the train station and catches a train to New York. On it, he meets the mother of a fellow student called Ernst Morrow. He tells lies about how good and famous he is, and that he would have been the new class president if he wouldn't be so shy and tell everyone to not vote him. He says this because he thinks that this will make a mother proud. When she asks him for his name and why he is leaving so early from Pencey, he says that his name is Rudolph Schmidt, and that he is leaving to New York to get a brain tumor operation.

My Personal Hero Story

The eight steps of my hero’s journey:

The Call: Paul asking James and his friends on the street if they want to meet and get to know each other better.

The Threshold: When James leaves the house against his parents will and enters the new unknown territory of Paul, which he has never seen before.

The Challenges: First of all, he has to stand up against his friends, and agree to meet Paul. Then he has to argue with his parents, and do something against their will. He goes through his window just to meet Paul.

The Abyss: When he arrives in town he has to find the café he has never seen before. Although it takes him a long time to find it, he doesn’t give up, and wants to keep his promise.

The Transformation: James overcame his fear to meet with Paul and enter the cafe, and realizes he is a really nice person.

The Revelation: He realizes that he was right in saying that the people who say that people who don’t wear expensive clothe and drive expensive cars are not as good as those who do is wrong; but he learned that not everyone that has money, has to show it. This is a completely new situation with which he is confronted. He has never heard of that before, and this really makes him think.

The Atonement: He meets with other kinds of people which he hasn't done before; he makes new great friends, which are really nice, and don’t only use and wear expensive things.

The Return: When he returns, his parents and friends at first are very confused; as he explains what people can be like, everyone is really convinced of him, and Paul. His idea has been very well accepted, and to honor him, his parents and friends don’t wear brand clothes for a whole week.

Protagonist description:

James wasn’t known to be brave; he was a rather shy seventeen year old, and two years younger than all of his friends. He played in the first Swiss soccer league, and thought he was the best of all, but never really said it. He earned very good money, and showed it very obviously by only wearing brand clothe with huge logos, and driving big cars. His five best friends were just like him, all convinced they were the best, and the coolest. They were satisfied stating that the "cool" people have to wear brand clothe, and drive big cars. They didn’t even talk to people that didn’t look cool in their opinion, they laughed at him. They gave them the feeling of being bad people because they didn’t have as much money. James was always with them and laughed, but never said a lot, he was too shy to stand out and deep inside thought different than his friends. He hated how they acted, but was scared to show and say so. He drove a big car and brand clothe because he wanted to have friends and be just like all others, not because he felt better if he had any of this. He was confronted with a situation he didn’t want to, and didn’t know how to get out of it. He was scared that his friends wouldn’t want to be with him anymore if he changed his clothing style, and if they left him, he would have had nobody left. He thought that he would be all by himself. He waited for the right moment to say what he thought for years and years, but it had never come.

What about the world you live in makes you uncomfortable?

There are a lot of things I like and don’t like about my surrounding world, but there is one thing I can’t stand. I hate it when people judge others because of what they are wearing, where they come from, what the parents do for a living, or how they look. I think that this is just ridicules; people can’t change anything of these four things. These don’t show anything about the character a person has, or how he/she really is like. Just because someone is wearing a t-shirt of a brand, or his/her parents are employed in a higher rank then one of their friends, they aren’t better, or more special. There are too many people that judge others by the first view or what they have heard from others. This really has to stop.

The Pea-Pod Man creating the World

Characters: Raven (creator, bird or man)
Man (created-new to Earth)

Plot: Raven (bird or man) is the creator of everything and can create what ever he wants (out of clay), so he creates food such as raspberries and animals such as humans, fish's, birds, or bears. He created a man out of clay. But soon the man gets too happy with his life, so Raven creates a bear to fear the man because he doesn't want him to be completely happy. At the end of the story, Raven creates a Wife for the Man and they have children, and this is how we were created.

Power Paragraphs

Mark Haddon writes with a lot of evocative description. Evocative description means to describe something with imagery, meaning that the reader can visualize what the author was writing as an image; he/she can imagine what the scene looks like. As seen on pg 131, we can perfectly image what is going on: "I counted the letters. There were 43 of them. They were all addressed to me in the same handwriting. I took one out and opened it. Inside was this letter….." The reader can perfectly image what it looks like, the 15-year old boy sitting there, with the big bunch of letters, looking surprised, and opening the first one he can grab. This is a perfect example of an evocative description.

 

In addition, there is a lot of clarity involved in big portions of Haddons writing. For example, on pg. 141, “Mother had not had a heart attack. Mother had not died. Mother had been alive all the time. And Father had lied about this." This shows that he really tries to clarify exactly what’s going on, how he feels, and what he thinks happened. This gives the reader the chance to completely understand why, what happened, and how. Haddon completely understands how to write with clarity.